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Archive for July, 2011

Head over to the Remember? page to download version 4.6, the latest release of my reminder package and the first as a Universal (PowerPC and Intel) binary. This version also brings Mac OS X 10.7 “Lion” compatibility as well as export to iCal file format. Your existing occasion files and settings are fully compatible.

The new release requires Mac OS X 10.5 or later. Version 4.5 is still available for Mac OS 9 & Mac OS X 10.2 – 10.4 as is version 3.4 for Mac OS 8 or below.

Enjoy!

2011-Jul-26 update: Just discovered a bug in version 4.6 regarding the About window. If you open it, close it, then try to open it again the app will stop responding. I’ve got a fix but I’m holding off a bit to see if any other “issues” get reported.

Also, I’ve had one report of problems with the version 4.6 download. In particular the name is truncated at the first space to “Remember” with no file extension. I haven’t seen it here with Safari on 10.6 or 1.7 so if anyone else sees this please post a comment or email me.

2011-Aug-02 update: The issue appears to only occur if you’re using Speed Download. It truncates the downloaded file before the embedded question mark even though it’s encoded. I’ll work out a proper fix but for now there is an alternate, Speed Download friendly download link on the Remember? page.

I decided to take a swing at porting the existing code to Xcode, Apple’s development system, and it went surprisingly better than expected. It was compiling cleanly on Xcode in a day or two and a week of tinkering later I think all of the nasty “little versus big endian” issues have been worked out. There’s still an obscure bug or three to be tracked down but it is stable enough that I’m using it on a daily basis.

What is it?

This is essentially the exact same code as version 4.5 with no new features other than native code support for Intel Macs.

Minimum OS requirements will probably be Mac OS X 10.5 or later. I might be able to support 10.4 as well but only if there’s sufficient demand for it.

I’ll keep the current 4.5 version around for those who might need it but I won’t be fixing bugs or adding features to it.

Actually I lied, there is one significant new feature: export to iCal format. It’s one-way only, there is no iCal import and no syncing. The common date templates (single date, annual, etc.) work but many of the more obscure possibilities are not supported by iCal. When I have the time I’ll work out the specifics and the export operation will tell you if any of your occasions might be problematic.

Availability

What I have now is almost good enough for a public trial, but it fails my extended torture tests after about 20 minutes or so. When it can run them indefinitely I’ll post a beta test version for the adventurous to try. An official release will follow when any reported problems are fixed.

Apple still hasn’t given an explicit release date for Lion but the rumors are that it could happen fairly soon. I’m hoping to post the bets version in the next week but if Lion beats me out the door I’ll send a pre-beta by email request as long as you’re willing to risk global thermonuclear disaster or the occasional crash.

A Bit of Advice on Lion

Before taking the plunge and upgrading to Lion is it really important that you first make sure you aren’t dependent on any PowerPC only applications. This change is on the same order as the loss of Classic in 10.5 (?) except in this case there is no System 7 style menu bar to clue you in that you are using a Power PC app. You could be in for a rude surprise unless you prepare for the upgrade.

In the Apple menu choose About this Mac then click the More Info button to open up System Profiler.

Select Applications in the Software section in the left column of System Profiler. It can take a few minutes to populate the list.

Widen the window so you can see the column labeled Kind. Click on it to sort your applications by the supported processor architectures.

Scroll down until you find the section with a type of PowerPC. These are the applications that will not run on Lion. Well, those in the Classic section won’t either but you’ve probably already crossed that bridge unless you’re still using 10.4.

Click on each PowerPC app and the Location line in the bottom section of the window will show you where it lives.

As this point the best bet is probably to launch each application and choose it’s “Check for Update” menu time if present, or visit the maker’s web site if not. If there is a free update that adds Intel or Universal support then grab it. For others you’ll have to decide if it’s worth a paid upgrade, look for alternatives that do support Intel Macs or just trash it if you don’t really need it.